Courtesy of NolaVie :

“Artists Find a Home in the Arts District”

After moving from Austin about a year ago, multi-media artist Chriselda Pacheco thought she’d found the perfect New Orleans apartment, situated in a 200-year-old building on Dumaine Street, across from a witchcraft shop.

“It was everything you think of when you think of New Orleans … a statue of Venus in the courtyard, gaslights on the balcony,” she said.

Just as her lease was up, however, Pacheco helped another artist friend move into a brand new artists’ community – The Saint Joe Lofts – in the Warehouse District. And when complications arose, preventing Pacheco from renewing her Dumaine Street lease, the photographer/documentary filmmaker/writer joined her friend at St. Joe.

“It’s amazing to be a part of something that is so visionary,” she said of the 61-unit complex, 50 of which are reserved, at a discount, for artists. “To really be a visionary, you have to have a little bit of hair on your chest. You’re building it and hoping people will come. You’re going on a hunch, and you’ve got to put everything into that hunch” […]

Read the rest of the article at NolaVie.com.